


Hattie

by cablesscutie



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Chirping, M/M, gordie howe hattie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 11:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11103639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cablesscutie/pseuds/cablesscutie
Summary: Bitty took a deep breath, and remembered his Moo Maw telling him "You've just gotta turn the other cheek, baby, and let 'em kiss your ass."





	Hattie

**Author's Note:**

> Quick warning for really mild violence and some unfriendly chirping.

Bitty was having a great game. He was dodging check left and right, and had even managed to dole out a couple of nudges back. He’d scored the goal that put Samwell on the board late in the first period off a sweet pass from Ransom and kicked the third off with an assist on Tango’s backhand goal. Shitty had hardly sat down in his seat the entire game, cheering and waving his new favorite sign “GIMME THE 4-11 TONIGHT” and getting a dusting of glitter all over the hair and fries of the guy in front of them. Jack, for his part, was bouncing on the balls of his feet, hands twitching at his sides when he wasn’t using them to gesticulate wildly as he cheered on his boyfriend and their friends. 

Meanwhile, down on the ice, Bitty was _pissed_. One of the d-men on the other team had been chirping them in an especially unfriendly way all night, and it was getting on his last nerve. Usually, Bitty had a pretty thick skin when it came to that though. Years of torment at the hands of bullies in Georgia and being probably the smallest guy in the NCAA made him good at shaking it off. He’d close his eyes, take a deep breath, and remember the day he’d finally told his MooMaw what had really been giving him such a tough time at school. She’d set down her cup of tea and leaned over the table to pinch Eric’s chin between her weathered fingers, and told him, “You’ve just gotta turn the other cheek baby,” and then her eyes took on a wicked gleam as she added, “and let ‘em kiss your ass.”

“Kiss my ass, Dunfort,” Bitty muttered to himself as he re-positioned himself beside Whiskey for the face-off again. The ref dropped the puck, Whiskey knocked it back to Nursey, and they were off again. They batted it around a bit, Nursey to Bitty to Tango and back to Whiskey, who got smashed into the boards cleanly and lost control of the puck. Bitty spun, kicking up a spray of snow, and booked it after the puck. Nursey and Dex zeroed in on the two players volleying it back and forth down the ice and shoulder-checked them out of alignment just enough for their last pass to go wide. The stray puck rolled around behind the goal and Bitty dashed after it, and was, of course, met by Dunfort, who shoved him roughly out of the way, scooped up the puck, and tried for a wraparound, only to have Chowder’s glove swoop down and stop him.

“Fuck!” With two minutes left in regulation and Samwell up by one, and with the way their D had been lighting it up all night, it was looking like victory for the Wellies was imminent and Dunfort was none too happy about it. He threw his stick down in frustration as the ref skated up to take the puck from Chowder. His teammate tried to pull him away by the elbow, but he pulled his arm free and turned to glare at Bitty patting Chowder on the head in congratulations. “Fuckin ridiculous! Between Tinkerbell and Brace-face here, we might as well be playing middle schoolers.”

Bitty huffed, and he saw Chowder’s eyebrows pinch together behind his mask. Off ice, Chris Chow was the sweetest person Bitty knew, but on the ice it’s a whole different story, and he didn’t want some jerk getting him out of his zone.

“You’re one to talk, fresh-meat. I’m surprised you can even hold up your fat head yet,” Chowder shot back.

“Oh lord,” Bitty sighed. Dunfort sneered.

“You eat your girlfriend out with those tinsel teeth?” Chowder stood up and skated to the edge of the crease. Bitty could feel his presence looming behind as he glowered.

“Don’t talk about my girlfriend!” Chowder skated forward again, and Bitty tried to pull him back. His own blood was boiling, and he was itching to step in and say something, but chirping was never going to really put a bully like that in his place.

“Come on man, just drop it,” Dunfort’s teammate gave his sleeve another yank, but he wouldn’t let it go.

“Chowder, honey,” Bitty tried to soothe him with a glove on his chest. Dunfort cackled. The edges of Bitty’s vision went red.

“Honey!?” He hooted. Bitty pulled his hand away from Chowder and shook the glove off. “Oh man, that’s so fuckin-” Dunfort didn’t get to finish his sentence. Bitty’s glove swiped the helmet off his head and his bare fist connected with Dunfort’s cheek, and that was that.

He only got the one hit in. Immediately after, Dunfort shoved him to the ice and the linesman swooped in and removed them both, Dunfort to the penalty box and Bitty from the game altogether.

Up in the stands, the crowd was losing its collective shit, none moreso than Jack and Shitty. Shitty was screaming indiscernibly,though Jack assumed it was probably profane in nature. Meanwhile, he himself was warring between concern for Bitty’s safety and and overwhelming pride. Fortunately, both reactions demanded the same response from him: he left the stands. The game was basically won, and even on the penalty kill for the last of it, the Samwell team’s morale would be through the roof from watching Bitty throw down. So he made his way down to the players’ tunnels, following the path he could still take in his sleep. 

He reaches the locker room just as coach Hall is shoving his way back out, scowling hard and nearly running into Jack. 

“Jack!” He looks surprised to see him, which is probably fair so close to the end of the game. Shaking his head, he tells him, “You might’ve fixed Bittle’s physicality issue a little _too_ much.” Jack consciously pulls his mind away from any meanings that could apply to that beyond hockey, but he still feels himself blushing as he shoves his hands in his pockets and says,

“Sorry?”

“Guess I’ll be careful what I wish for next time,” he says, and then he gives Jack a couple pats on the back and disappears down the tunnel, hurrying back to the bench.

When he steps into the locker room, Jack’s not sure what he’ll find. He sort of expects Bitty to be crying - he’s never good with confrontation, and Hall surely reamed him out for getting himself booted from the next game. He’s definitely expecting something quiet and subdued, the way Bitty always is on the other side of a fight, drained of all the rage he mustered up for the occasion. For all he was a fighter, Eric Bittle wasn’t good at being angry.

Instead, Bitty looked _livid_. He was crying too, face red and a few frustrated tears dripping down his cheeks, like he’d managed to hold it in until coach left and was bursting at the seams with it. “Don’t” he chokes out as soon as he makes out Jack standing in the doorway. Jack steps further into the room and lets the door fall shut to give them a moment of privacy while the game runs out and the teams shake hands.

“Don’t...what?” Bitty’s taught him not to be afraid of asking more questions, even if he’s worried they might sound stupid. “ _It’s stupider to just let it get lost in translation,”_ Bitty had told him. So he asks. Because he wants to be whatever his boyfriend needs right now, but he needs to be _told_. 

“Don’t lecture me, I know it was wrong, but I’m not sorry and I’m not gonna be.” His arms are crossed defensively across his chest, but his lips keep trembling and Jack just wants to make him stop caving in on himself. He nods and crosses the room to stand in front of Bitty and smooths his hands over his shoulders.

“That’s not what I came here for,” Jack promises. Bittle sniffles, waiting for him to continue. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. It’s not like you to let chirping get to you.”

“Well.” Bitty shrugged. “He went after Chowder. And he was like a dog with a bone, that one. Nothin’ else was gonna shut him up.”

“So you shut it for him, eh?” Jack’s mouth curved up in a smile, and Bitty laughed, the redness in his face fading a little as his eyes dried.

“That’s about the size of it, seems.” Jack pulled him into his chest for a hug, Bitty rubbing his tear-stained face against the fabric of Jack’s t-shirt, and Jack pressing a kiss to Bitty’s hair, uncaring of how sweaty and unruly it was.

A moment later, they heard the team thundering back down the hallway, and could tell from the volume alone that they’d won. They tumbled into the locker room in a heap of yelling boys and flailing limbs, shoving and whooping as they split off to their stalls to start stripping gear off. Shitty picked up the rear, churro in one hand and glitter sign in the other.

“What a fuckin night!” he crowed through a mouthful of fried pastry. “Bits, brah! Way to throw the fuck down! Rans, that last goal’s going in the spank bank!”

“Thanks, Shitty,” Bitty laughed, tucking himself under Jack’s arm.

“I feel sorry for Lards though,” Holster elbowed Ransom. The woman in question shoved through the frogs and gave Shitty a playful swat on the butt with her clipboard.

“I knew what I signed up for.”

“Jack, tell these fuckers how beautiful they are!” Bitty felt Jack laugh against his side, and expected him to shake his head and brush it off, but instead, Jack’s arm around his shoulders shook him, free hand ruffling his hair as he yelled, 

“My man scored a Gordie Howe hattie tonight!”


End file.
